I Like It
by Ensignily
Summary: After the previous night guard's recording from the fourth night, Mike decides he'll follow his advice and check backstage.


"Uh, hey, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow-" the man's speech was interrupted by a loud banging at the door, which caused Mike to jump at least a foot out of his seat. The unnerving start to the message already had Mike feeling uneasy, but the banging pushed the paranoia forward as he hastily checked the door for Foxy, only to remember that he never closed the door in the first place.

"It's-It's been a bad night here-" _bang, bang, bang,_ "-for me. Um, I-I'm-" _bang, bang, bang, _"-kind of glad I recorded my messages for you, uh, when I did."

Mike tried to focus on the movement of the animatronics, which were even more active than the night before, but his attention kept going back to the sound of the man's voice on the message. More banging from the recording startled Mike once again.

"Uh, hey, do me a favour. Maybe sometime-" _bang, bang, bang, _"-uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room?" _Bang, bang, bang._ "I'm going to try to hold out until someone checks." _Bang, bang, bang._ "Maybe it won't be so bad." _Bang, bang, bang._ "Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there … you know…"

Mike had already set down his tablet, listening to the horrifying truth the past guard was implying. No doubt the power was low and the man was distracted by the animatronics, surrounding him one by one as he checked the cameras. Mike could imagine it in his head; a man, similar to himself, blabbering into the phone as he stared down at the tablet Mike now held in his own hands, power running low; almost at the point of begging whomever was listening to the recording the next week of saving him from the future.

Toreador March – Freddy's Song – started up from the phone sitting on the desk. The song that meant immediate death was at your doorway. The music box was followed by a moan that Mike recognized as Bonnie or Chica.

"Oh, no-" the phone guy stopped, and all of a sudden there was a low-pitched shriek cut off by the static of a phone that was no longer connected. The phone hung up.

Mike sat still, horrified, until the sound of Bonnie's footsteps in the west hall pulled his attention towards the tablet. He quickly got back into the night's routine, though the previous night guard's phone call echoed in his mind, reminding him that that could be his fate as well.

• • •

The hum of the generated power shut off, leaving Mike with less than an hour left and no more power.

"No…" he murmured, the phone call repeating in his head for millionth time that night. "I was so close, _I was so close!_" he yelled through gritted teeth, shaking the tablet as if it would come back to life.

Heavy footsteps tromped down the hall, just as he did the other nights when the power ran out. He _only _appeared in the west hall when the power was out, Mike noticed. It was like the other animatronics left the honours to Freddy. It was a race to see who would get him the fastest, but if the power was used up, Freddy has you reserved. It's all a big game to them. Mike hated that.

Mike dropped the tablet onto the desk as the Toreador March broke the uneasy silence, Freddy's face flickering in the darkness of the hallway.

"I'm dead," Mike gave up. "I'm so dead." He stopped; body shaking as he stared at Freddy's illuminated face in the hallway. "Nope," he suddenly changed his mind, "no, no, no. Let it turn to six. _Please _let it turn to six." He glanced down at his watch hastily.

Mike held his wrist up towards Freddy. "It's six, Freddy! Your game is _over_. _Let me out_." However, the bear did not move.

Freddy's chime ended, and his face stopped flickering, so Mike did the only thing he knew how to do at this point: hold up his middle fingers towards the darkness of the doorway and squeeze his eyes shut.

When nothing came, Mike dared to open up one eye, only to still see nothing. Suddenly, as if Mike's prayers had been answered, the bells of the building's clocks rang 6 AM.

"_Yes!_" Mike cried out, throwing his arms out in victory. The animatronics were already resetting to their positions onstage, and the regular power would be turning on soon. Mike celebrated his survival in any way that would calm his shaking body, which included yelling out into the hallways and jumping around the dirty office albeit the darkness.

Once he was calmed down, Mike slumped back down in his chair to wait for the power to come back on. He never left while the power was still out with the anxiety of one of the animatronics attacking him from around the corner, even if their free roaming schedule only lasted from midnight to six.

Plus, he had a bit of exploring to do.

The man who left the recordings for him told him to go to the back room to check the suits. Mike told himself that he wasn't sure what to expect, though he knew very well what he was supposed to find in the back room.

To his relief, the overhead lights suddenly flickered on, fully lighting up the building. Mike couldn't tell if everything looked dirtier or cleaner in the fluorescent light, but it certainly didn't seem as threatening.

Mike never saw any part of the pizzeria besides what he saw through the cameras and what was on his way to the back exit. Today, however, would be different. Instead of turning left to find the back exit when he entered the hall, he turned right towards the main floor. He passed Foxy's stage, which, thankfully, was closed with its "Out of Order" sign, and approached closer to the stage. Though the animatronics were set in their default positions, Mike could still feel them looming over him and watching his every move, wondering why he was still here after they had gone back to sleep.

The entrance to the backstage was to the left of the stage, close to Pirate's Cove. The backstage area wasn't often used; nothing in there served any use anymore, and the extra masks were just as old and dirty as the ones currently on the animatronics. The only things that ever went in that room anymore were the animatronics themselves when they wandered in during the night.

Mike's hand hovered over the doorknob as he thought over every sequence of events he could imagine, the first one being that there was no dead body at all. However, would that mean that either he didn't die; the evidence was found and cleaned up, or worse?

Mike shook the thoughts away, and before he could stop himself again, pushed open the door. He immediately noticed the smell of various bodily fluids that very well should stay inside of the body.

Hesitantly, Mike felt around the wall near the doorway for a light switch and turned on the lights. From sight, nothing seemed off; extra masks and parts sat on shelves, as they should be. However, the horrible smell wafting the room proved otherwise.

"Hello?" Mike silently called out. He was about to call out a name, and then he realized that the man never said his name out loud. "Uh, P-Phone Guy?"

A faint moan came from the other side of the room behind the table. Mike crept around the table, which obscured the rest of the room from his vision from the doorway, and found him.

"Oh, God…" Mike murmured as he dropped to his knees, staring at the slumped over Golden Freddy suit on the floor. "I didn't know this suit actually existed," Mike said aloud, trying to figure out the best way to remove the man from the suit.

The man moaned again and Mike grabbed onto the suit. "Can you hear me?"

He moved his head slightly, so Mike quickly accepted that as a yes. "Hey, you're going to be okay. Let's get you out of this suit." He couldn't hide the shaking in his voice as he tried to calmly comfort the man. "I-I'm going to remove the mask first, okay?"

Mike grasped onto the dirty yellow mask and gently pulled, twisting it just a bit to help it loosen. He kept the movements slow as to not hurt the man any more than he already was. Mike was fascinated at how he had somehow managed to keep his eyes and teeth from popping out of the mask.

When he finally got the mask all the way off, he realized what horrible condition the man was in. He had smartly managed to cover his face with his hands before the mask had been put on him, however this caused deep gashes all over the back of his hands from all of the metal crossbeams inside of the mask. Dry blood coated his hands as fresh blood began to ooze from the cuts.

"Hey, hey, are you alright? Try to stay with me, I can get you out of here and we can take you to a hospital. Can you remove your hands from you face?"

The man slowly moved his hands off of his face, though his elbows were stuck inside of the torso of the suit. Blood was caked on the border of his face and in his hair.

"Breathe, okay? It must have been hard to breathe with that thing over your head, huh?" Mike tried to smile, but easily failed. "Okay, uh, let's get your arms out." Mike carefully grabbed the man's left arm and helped him raise it up to free his elbow from the suit. He did the same with the right.

Mike examined the rest of the suit. There wasn't any type of zipper or anything that would allow him to step right out of.

"Uh, should I cut open the suit?" He suggested, mostly to himself. However, the man shook his head. "Oh, yeah, can't tamper with the suits." He remembered. Mike shook his head. "There's no other choice, unless we wiggle it off of you, and that requires you standing up. Think you can do it?"

He nodded, and reached out for support. Mike held on to his thin arms and helped him stand up. With Mike's help, the man eventually managed to shimmy out of the suit.

Blood and urine covered most of his body, and he was horribly thin. Mike was surprised he managed to survive a full week in the suit.

"Okay, okay, you're doing great, uh, let's go to my office. I can get you some water and call an ambulance." Mike offered, letting the man use him for support as they walked out of the room. Once they were in the office, Mike helped him sit down in the chair. The man had yet to open his eyes, so Mike turned off the lights in the office so it'd be easier to adjust to the light.

"I'm going to get you some water, I'll be right back." Mike left to retrieve water from the fountains near the bathroom, and when he came back the man had opened his eyes.

Mike handed him the cup, which he immediately started gulping down. Mike picked up the phone on the desk and called an ambulance.

"Is there a first aid kit around here anywhere?" he asked once he got off the phone. The man nodded and pointed to one of the desk drawers and Mike retrieved it. He pulled out some bandages and began to wrap them around the man's hands.

"You-"

Mike looked up, startled by the man's speech.

His voice was hoarse, though still the voice Mike was familiar with from the phone recordings every night.

"You called me 'Phone Guy,'" he said, a small smile forming on his face, "I like it."


End file.
